No matter how hard you might try, it's difficult to nap at work. Colleagues, phonecalls, lunchtime; things always get in the way. Even if you're a snooze-master and can actually fall asleep while holding your hand to your brow as if in deep concentration, you won't get away with it in the office. You won't, but you ought to.

The right to doze off in the workplace is something I've supported for a long time, yet I've never had a decent argument to support it. But after years of snoring in the wilderness it appears the facts have come round to my way of thinking. I say facts, no doubt snooze-deniers will soon be submitting freedom of information requests demanding raw data from the report that claims a little kip can aid the learning process.

According to reports of the report, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that people who completed a task and then slept on it were likely to complete the task more quickly when asked to try again. I stretch the point slightly; the difference was only notable if the nappers also dreamed of the task. But they were napping, all the same (and were prevented from entering REM sleep – which is, of course, a condition familiar to anyone who tries to get 40 winks in the office).

Professor Robert Stickgold was the man who led the research and, as such, is best placed to lead us into the science bit: "If you remain awake you perform worse on the subsequent task. Your memory actually decays, no matter how much you might think about [the task].

"Dreams are a clear indication that the sleeping brain is working on memories at multiple levels, including ways that will directly improve performance. In fact, this may be one of the main goals that led to the evolution of sleep."

Of course, it is possible to look at this research and be struck more by the amazing capabilities of the human brain than the central need for legislated napping. But that would be wrong. Because now we know that not only is the nap a good starter in helping to shake off a hangover, or pass the most tedious parts of the day, it's a performance enhancer which could prove essential to the future prosperity of this country.

And here's why. We all know that Britain is part of a globalised world, and that the globalised world is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, we get cheaper electronic goods, on the other hand we lose all our jobs. The response of some politicians to this new world has been to cry effusively in private. Others have insisted that we must not despair but simply develop our workforce, in the hope of creating what is sometimes called a "knowledge economy".

If we create a highly educated workforce, so the logic goes, we'll continue to have skills that are valuable in a globalised world and, what's more, we can charge a lot of money for them and therefore continue living in the style to which we've become accustomed. This assumption, unfortunately, is kind of predicated on no other countries doing the exact same thing. And as the Economist reported last week, China is already proving themselves quite capable of creating knowledge-based businesses of their own, thank you very much.

So where does that leave us? I'll tell you where; in need of a nap. Because if there's one productivity gain you're unlikely to pursue in an authoritarian state it's allowing people to kip on the job. There's nothing to stop us doing it, though. In fact, we'd be flipping good at it. Enforce mandatory 20-minute catnaps five times a day and who knows what might happen. We could find ourselves not only in the middle of a green revolution but on the cusp of a second renaissance!

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but you can't stop me from dreaming – well, during work hours you can, but that's what I'm talking about. The first leader to nod off during next week's TV debate gets my vote, for real.